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Berlin 2004 - The Fifteenth anniversary of the fall of the Wall so I decide to visit Berlin again to see how much this new city has changed since it was divided. I look on internet and find that Easyjet is flying to Schoneburg very cheaply indeed so I book to go from Luton. I stay in a small hotel in Luton overnight, not sleeping so I can get ready to leave very early. I find my car hemmed in by other cars and have difficulty accessing my door. I manage to get in from the passenger side and make a dash for the airport...It is bitterly cold and I arrive at the airport and the car is soon covered in frozen fog when I leave it in the car park. We board the aeroplane and set out just as dawn is breaking. Two hours later I am on the train into Berlin picking out the landmarks. We rumble into the Zoo station and I feel the cold as I leave the station to look for a bus to take me to the Reichstag on a similar route as I had come to Berlin in 1989 from this direction. This time I was able to pass under the Brandenburg Gate and walk down Unter den Linden. The shops were full of items now and I walked all the way to AlexPlatz to have breakfast in the Alex Cafe just next to the Fernsehturm. Then I walked to the hotel I had book, again through the internet. This was the Agon im Alexanderplatz, a block of flats from the old days which had been turned into a hotel.
The rooms were actually the flats so I had a bedroom, an eating area, showers and television. The window looked over the road to more blocks of flats. It was nice and warm and I was glad to have a good shower and make up a bit of sleep.  |
